Dear friends and colleagues,
Due to unforeseen organizational circumstances, we regret to inform you that the following event must be postponed to a later date. We will announce the new date as soon as it is confirmed.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Best regards,
The ISCSD Team.
Date: June 25, 2025
Time: 13:00 CET
Zoom Link: https://fau.zoom-x.de/j/63863821152
The International Society for the Critical Study of Divination (ISCSD) is pleased to invite you to our upcoming Book Talk, featuring Dr. Joanne Edge (University of Edinburgh) and her recent monograph Onomantic Divination in Late Medieval Britain: Questioning Life, Predicting Death. This groundbreaking study examines the widespread use and cultural significance of onomancy—a form of divination that predicts the future through the numerical values of letters in personal names—across over sixty-five manuscripts from medieval Britain (c. 1150–1500). Often dismissed or condemned in official theological discourse as “Pythagorean necromancy,” onomancy nevertheless found a robust presence in texts associated with religion, medicine, and scholastic inquiry.
Dr. Edge’s research sheds light on how this practice was employed by diverse social groups, including monastics, university-trained scholars, aristocrats, and medical practitioners. In doing so, she repositions onomancy as a key to understanding broader epistemologies of fate, identity, and prognostication in the medieval world.
The event will be hosted by Michael Lackner (Center for Advanced Studies, Erlangen) and will feature commentary from discussant Dr. Carine van Rhijn (Utrecht University), a noted scholar of medieval religious and intellectual culture.
We look forward to welcoming you to what promises to be a rich and thought-provoking discussion.
The event poster can also be found here.
